Deborah Crombie - Where Memories Lie

Kit straightened his cutlery. "I'd asked her about her father. About why her father didn't get out of Germany-I know I probably shouldn't have."

He waited for censure, but Gemma frowned and said, "Why didn't her father get out?"

"He-" Kit fought a sudden and ridiculous urge to blink back tears. "He waited, because he didn't want to draw attention to Erika and her husband getting away. But by then it was too late." He swallowed, glad to have got through that bit without a quaver.

"Oh, no." Gemma looked stricken. "No wonder the brooch her father made means so much to her."

"But that's not the worst thing." Kit was determined now to tell her all of it before Toby came back. "Her husband was killed. Murdered."

"What?"

He glanced at Gemma, then back at the alignment of his knife. Erika had told him while they were sitting here, having coffee, and she had said it in a matter-of-fact way that he envied. Would he ever be able to tell someone his mum had been murdered without choking up and making a fool of himself? He was careful at school, often pretending that Gemma and Duncan were both his parents, and that they had always lived together. No one thought much these days about a mum having a different name.

Hearing Toby talking to Otto in the kitchen, Kit said quietly, "Someone stabbed Erika's husband-his name was David-in a park near the Albert Bridge. No one was ever charged, and Erika said"-Kit made an effort to remember her words exactly-"she said she didn't know if she could bear another unresolved death." He had understood, because he couldn't imagine how he would feel if he didn't know who had killed his mum.

"When?" asked Gemma. "Did she say when this happened?"

Kit shrugged. "A long time ago. After the war. But I don't see what that can possibly have to do with the girl who was killed yesterday."

Having tried Harry Pevensey's phone again from the office with no luck, Kincaid and Cullen had taken a car and driven to the address Khan had given Cullen.

The first sign of trouble was the police roadblock across the bottom end of Hanway Street.

"Bugger. Wonder what's going on," Kincaid said, but he had a bad feeling. Finding the police in attendance when one arrived to interview a possible suspect in a crime was usually not a good omen.

Parking on Oxford Street itself was completely impossible, although he had known Cullen to risk the lives and limbs of pedestrians by pulling the car up on the pavement. "Let's try the other end, off Tottenham Court," he added hurriedly.

From behind the wheel, Cullen gave him a look that said he didn't appreciate backseat drivers, but said merely, "Right, guv."

When Cullen rounded the corner into Tottenham Court Road and pulled into the other end of Hanway Street, Kincaid saw immediately that the junction of Hanway Street and Hanway Place was blocked as well, and on the other side of the barricade he saw the ominous blue flashing of police lights.

Pulling up on the double yellows in front of the flamenco club on the corner, Cullen said, "Unfortunate coincidence?"

"Don't believe in them."

Kincaid got out of the car and, ducking round the barricade, forestalled the uniformed constable's advance with a flash of his warrant card.

"Oh, sorry, sir." The constable, who didn't look long out of the academy, relaxed and looked a bit sheepish. "Should have realized," he said, nodding at the car and the POLICE notice Cullen had propped in the windscreen.

"What's happened here?" asked Kincaid, uninterested in apologies. Cullen had followed and stood silently beside him.

"You've not been called in?"

"No, but I suspect I will be," Kincaid said through gritted teeth. He could see an accident investigation team working farther along Hanway Place.

"Bloke got himself run down in the middle of the night," said the constable. "Bit hard to step out in front of a car along here," he added, with a puzzled shake of his head. "But could be he had a bit much to drink. Nasty business, though. Car didn't just knock him down, but ran right over him. Neighbor came along and found him, sicked up all over himself, so I heard."

"Loquacious bastard," Cullen muttered under his breath.

"The victim. Do you have an ID?" asked Kincaid, wishing a plague on all newly hatched constables.

The young man frowned, his spotty forehead wrinkling with effort. "Something poncey sounding. Pevensey," he said after great deliberation, putting the accent on the middle syllable. "Harry Pevensey."

Gavin knew there was something different about the flat as soon as he unlocked the door. After his interview with the super, he had collected the assortment of newspapers from his desk, and then, having no further excuse to tarry, had gone home.

He stood in the hall, listening, hearing nothing but the faint ticking of the clock in the sitting room. The clock had been a wedding gift from his in-laws, a carved Bavarian piece with little male and female figures that toddled out on the hour, and he hated it.

"Linda?" he called out tentatively, but his own voice sounded unnaturally loud and echoed back to him. The flat, he realized, was dark as well as quiet. Linda was frugal in saving on the electricity, but usually she left a small lamp burning, even if she was out.

He set his bundle of newspapers on the shelf in the hall and walked slowly towards the sitting room, chiding himself when he realized he was tiptoeing. It was his house, for God's sake-what reason had he to be afraid?

But when he reached the sitting room, he found it dark as well, and when he switched on the lamp, it took him a moment to work out what was wrong.

The children's photos were missing from the side table. As was Linda's basket of darning, and the stack of women's magazines in the rack beside the sofa. Nor were there any children's shoes or scattered schoolbooks.

The clock, however, remained, and it struck the hour, making him jump. The little painted husband and wife trundled out in their ritual parade, and it seemed to Gavin that they were mocking him.

"Linda?" he called again. "Susie? Stuart?" But this time he didn't really expect an answer.

He found the note in the kitchen, beside a slab of cheese and the heel end of a loaf of bread left on a plate.

She said she had taken the children to her mother's. She didn't say if she meant for a visit or for good, but when he went into the bedroom, he found her clothes missing from the cupboard and the dressing table empty of hairbrush and cosmetics. The bed was neatly covered with the candlewick spread, and the faint scent of Linda's perfume lingered, like a ghost of all the things his marriage might have been.

Gavin sat down on the bed, the springs creaking beneath his weight, and wondered how long it had been since they had had to be careful not to wake the children. He closed his eyes against a sudden vertigo. Had she really left him?

He wavered between relief and terror, then laughed aloud, hearing the edge of hysteria and not caring.

His wife and children were gone, his job at risk. What had he left to lose?

"Bloody hell," Cullen heard Kincaid mutter. Then Kincaid snapped at the constable. "Who's in charge here?"

The PC looked at him blankly.

"Your SIO, man. Senior investigating officer. Don't they teach you anything these days?"

"Sir, they just told me not to let anyone through the barricade." He gestured at the accident investigators. "I don't think CID's been called in. An accident-"

"It wasn't an accident. And I'll be taking over this case. Now go tell the lads this is a crime scene while I get things organized." He was already pulling out his phone as the constable gave him a harried-rabbit look and sprinted for the investigators.